


Awake

by Loftec



Series: Wait for it [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 10:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5331542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loftec/pseuds/Loftec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s the other hand that does it, breaks his resolve. Thumb stroking across the shell of his ear, long fingers dipping deep within his hair, slowly raking through it, his scalp tingling in their wake. He knows Ian wants to talk, and he knows he’ll wait, if Mickey needs time. </p><p>Mickey doesn’t want to wait. Done enough of that for several lifetimes."</p><p> </p><p>RATED M. I really don't know, I usually write pretty tame things so I don't have to worry about this, but this is canon compliant and therefore I feel I must warn you about this fic having more or less brief mentions of the following (but does not actually depict any of it): rape, corrective rape, violence, abuse, self-harm, attempted suicide, drug abuse, overdosing, and death. Sigh.</p><p>Also exponentially more cussing, Mickey POV yo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awake

_From Ian Today 9:37 PM_  
42 min drive, ok traffic. Turning back  
now.

 _Today 9:39 PM_  
Okay. Calling off the rescue party.  
Good?

 _From Ian Today 9:40 PM_  
Yep. Should see this neighborhood,  
major front lawn situation.

 _Today 9:40 PM_  
Swanky?

…

 _Today 9:41 PM_  
Nevermind, stop texting and start  
driving before they arrest your ass.

 _Today 9:42 PM_  
Or you find something better over  
there.

 _From Ian Today 9:43 PM_  
Rich people! I’m cured! I see the  
light now! have a nice life

 _Today 9:43 PM_  
Ha ha fuck you

 _From Ian Today 9:44 PM_  
Nah, don’t worry. It’s not that swanky,  
not leaving you for anything less than  
top 1% kinda filthy rich

 _Today 9:45 PM_  
Nice to know

 _Today 9:45 PM_  
I’d settle for less

 _Today 9:46 PM_  
Pay someone, even

 _From Ian Today 9:47 PM_  
HAHA hilarious.

 _From Ian Today 9:47 PM_  
Stop being a dick and let me drive,  
really am starting to look like a fucking  
creep here

 _Today 9:48 PM_  
Don’t need my help for that.

 _From Ian Today 9:48 PM_  
I’m leaving now, better be fucking  
awake when I get home

 _Today 9:49 PM_  
Drive safe

 _From Ian Today 9:49 PM_  
Not kidding. Awake.

 

Mickey glances at the last text and unlocks the screen to view the whole conversation, making sure Ian gets the notification that he’s read his message. Ian’s very strict about not texting while he’s driving, something no one’s ever gonna hear Mickey complain about, so he’s not likely to put down his phone and start his journey home until he thinks Mickey’s said all he intends to say.

He lets the screen fall dark and sits with the phone in his hands for a moment, making sure the conversation has properly petered out. Then he puts it down on the table and pulls a hand through his hair, his heavy sigh like a gust of wind through the kitchen.

He sits there for a while, tries to think. But his thoughts are like molasses and racing around hundred miles a minute at once, the most random things popping up and grabbing his attention in short, broken threads. He knows exactly what he should be thinking about, but he can’t. Not yet.

So he gets up, and he busies himself with whatever comes to mind. He puts stuff away in the kitchen; cereal boxes that do have places within the cupboards but usually end up on the counter all day; the salt and pepper shakers by the stove when they have a perfectly alright spice rack. He thinks for a second about alphabetization, but there has to be a fucking limit to some things. He empties the ashtray on the balcony, and he takes out the trash. Then he checks in on the laundry hanging on the concertina contraption they like to set up in the shower, the only space available where it won’t be so much in the way all the time, but the clothes are still a little damp so he leaves them be. He sits on the closed lid of the toilet for a couple of minutes, makes four separate lists of his top five swears to use in different situations. Unsurprisingly, ’fuck’ champions all four categories. 

He brushes his teeth, fucking flosses the sonbitches too, for good measure. He takes a leak, he gets undressed, he goes to bed. He curls up on his side, face close to the nightstand on his side of the bed. He watches the slow blink of time on his alarm clock radio, the red pins forming numbers and the two dots separating the hours and minutes steadily measuring the seconds in between.

10:25. 10:25. 10:25. 10:25. 10:26.

He can’t sleep.

He’s trying very hard to not think about the worst day of his life to date, when he hears the key in the lock and then the familiar sound of Ian shuffling inside. He hears him twist the lock again, immediately after the door closes, and then the soft thuds of his hands fumbling for the light switch. The dim hallway light clicks on and Mickey can’t see it directly, facing away from the door, but the whole bedroom brightens ever so slightly from it.

He listens to Ian walk through the apartment. He stops by the bedroom door, no doubt looking daggers at his back for appearing to be asleep. No. No doubt looking at him with that half-a-smile and eyes muddled with affection. Fucking sap stands there for a bit too long, then he walks into the kitchen. Mickey hears the clink of a glass being removed from the cupboard above the sink, and the tiny creaks of plastic and aluminum breaking. Lids untwisting and re-twisting. 

He listens to Ian walking back into the hallway and into the bathroom, asshole never closes the door. He hears him pee, charming as fuck, and then that steady, meticulous way he brushes his teeth. Bottom left, bottom right, bottom center, top left, top right, top center. Repeat and rinse. Floss, gargle, wash. 

He listens to Ian turning off the lights and double-checking that he locked the door. Softly padding into the bedroom and quietly getting undressed in the dark. He feels the tug at the covers behind him, and then the dip of Ian’s weight into the mattress. The warmth of him as he shuffles his whole body across the space between them, lifting the covers little by little to accommodate his movements. 

This fucking guy, Mickey’s fucking guy. Mickey would bitch about the extra hundred bucks they shelled out for a king size, only to have Ian crowd him like a sardine every night. But damned it if Ian hadn’t talked about always wanting a big bed, about being adults, about this being theirs for a long time to come. And fuck it if he hadn’t looked at Mickey and Mickey had seen his thoughts of creaky narrow bunk beds, six fucking years of them. 

He does bitch about the extra hundred bucks, frequently, animatedly, scoffing at Ian’s lame attempts at shifting focus by questioning Mickey’s habit of sleeping right by the very edge of his side. He would bitch about it now, too, but he knows where that well-trodden road leads. Knows that Ian figured out long before he even realized it himself that where Mickey doesn’t flirt, he antagonizes, and where Mickey doesn’t sweet-talk, he teases. And when time is of the essence; he doesn’t preamble, he just flat out asks for what he wants. He could do with a good pounding right now, never fails to take his mind off things, and he could bitch and tease or turn around and find Ian’s lips and skip the preamble before he has time to settle in. Get it good and forget about everything else for a short while.

But he doesn’t. He stays still, and he pays attention to every little shift and dip as Ian’s body manages to make contact with his at all possible points. He doesn’t open his eyes when he feels Ian’s elbow dig into the pillow behind his neck, and his other arm snaking around his waist, across his chest, hand stilling on his shoulder, grasping it gently. 

He doesn’t stir when Ian leans his chest more closely against him and rests his chin on Mickey’s upper arm, his warm breath fanning out over his shoulder and Ian’s hand holding him there. He doesn’t say anything when Ian presses his lips to his skin in a slow, dry kiss. Keeping his mouth against him and just breathing, inhaling deeply, exhaling slowly. 

It’s the other hand that does it, breaks his resolve. Thumb stroking across the shell of his ear, long fingers dipping deep within his hair, slowly raking through it, his scalp tingling in their wake. He knows Ian wants to talk, and he knows he’ll wait, if Mickey needs time. 

Mickey doesn’t want to wait. Done enough of that for several lifetimes.

So he picks up his left hand the half a foot or so necessary for him to place it on top of Ian’s, letting his fingertips graze across the pronounced veins and bones. 

”Hey,” Ian mumbles against his skin, picking up his head a little to rest it on his chin again. ”What’re you thinking?”

”Trying not to,” Mickey admits, not looking at Ian when he opens his eyes.

”Crazy, huh?” Ian sighs, and presses another kiss to Mickey’s shoulder.

”What we do best.”

Ian hums, the sound of it vibrating through Mickey’s chest.

”What do you want to do?”

”I don’t fucking know,” Mickey bites, desperately, ”the hell do I know about being a dad anyway?”

”Well, you sure know what _not_ to do,” Ian smiles sadly against his skin, ”good a start as any.”

”Real fucking helpful, Ian.”

”Hey,” Ian frowns and shakes him by the shoulder, firmly, gently, prompting Mickey to look at him, ”you’re loyal, smart, resourceful. You got a heart the size of your fucking chest, Mick. You’d keep him outta jail, help him with his fucking math homework, alright? More than enough in there to go around, you get that?”

”Jesus, didn’t ask for the fucking pep-talk,” Mickey grumbles, and knows Ian gets it when he plants another soothing kiss on him. Sincerity never sat well with him and Ian hardly ever talked about him that way, knowing it wasn’t easy for Mickey to hear. 

”We don’t even know what he really wants from ya,” Ian carries on, ”shit, we should have asked him more questions. Does he want like a full time dad thing? Or did he just want answers? What if he already has a father, Mick? Lana might have re-married.”

”Not likely, kid seemed pretty fucking insistent on calling me ’dad’,” Mickey says, fingers drawing circles on the back of Ian’s hand, ”you didn’t really help either.”

”Sorry,” Ian speaks against him and dips his head down behind Mickey’s shoulder, shielding his face from sight for a moment, voice unusually gentle when he continues, ”never thought I’d see him again.”

”I know,” Mickey sighs, and flattens his hand against Ian’s, fingers caressing fingers, following the slight bend of his knuckles.

”I told him that, tried to tell him we’d be here for him, whatever he could want,” Ian hesitates, his face reappearing in Mickey’s peripheral vision, ”he hugged me, Mick. I know it’s dumb, okay? I mean, he was an infant when I saw him last, and there shouldn’t be any- fuck, I don’t know. Felt like our kid had come back to life.”

Our kid. Mickey swallows awkwardly and closes his eyes. Not even back at the house, when they were little more than kids themselves, had Ian called Yevgeny ’ours’. Mickey had pretty early on thought of the inconvenient baby as more Ian’s than his, but they’d never talked about it.

They’d talked about it now, this time around. Not too much about Yevgeny, a sore subject and previously assumed a moot point. But about ’our’ and ’kid’. They were both so used to big families, to constant noise and company, and it had felt strange to think of their own unit never expanding beyond the two of them. In their lives, kids weren’t planned; they happened. The Gallagher model being one of ’oops, we made another one, don’t let it die’, the Milkovich line more like a recruitment plan. Other than Yevgeny, Ian and Mickey would never have a happy accident. If they wanted kids, they would have to go out and make them, plan, make very conscious decisions. And so far, the conscious decision kept coming up ’no’.

They both know Ian questions it, still has this Yevgeny-shaped hole in his heart. Less known is that Mickey questions it too, nurturing painfully fond memories of the natural ease with which they once had played house together, assembled their own little motley crew of a family. But neither of them like to give much weight to sentimentality, and these thoughts usually give way to something a bit more reasonable. Back then, they had Svetlana to do most of the actual hands-on parenting, and they had Ian riding a very helpful high at the time, keeping him in spirits when the kid did his best to keep them up night after night, fussing and crying over nothing. Until he wasn’t.

Truth is, Ian and Mickey have it good now, finally. Real good. They’re uncles to a whole hoard of kids, of all shapes and varieties, and it’s good. And while he knows Ian still thinks about Yevgeny, wonders, wishes, he himself has over time become an expert at _not_.

”Hey,” Ian’s mouth moves against his shoulder, two fingers tugging gently at his earlobe, ”what?”

”He say anything?”

”Not much,” Ian considers, leaning forward ever so slightly to kiss the side of Mickey’s ring finger, pressure on Mickey’s back increasing for a second with the movement, ”said he’s happy we have each other.”

”Yeah, well,” Mickey glances at Ian’s face in the dark and feels himself mirror his lopsided grin, ”shows how much he knows.”

”We talked about baseball for a full ten minutes.”

”Fuck,” Mickey groans and shuts his eyes as he smothers his face into the pillow, ”he a fucking jock too?”

”Hey now, keep an open mind,” Ian’s sounding way too happy about this, ”kids can be whatever they want, these days.”

”North side, jock,” Mickey lists, whines, ”did you hear him swear even fucking once?”

”Nope.”

”No way he’s my kid,” Mickey scoffs, and feels himself relax a little under the bright beam of Ian’s smile.

”You want to do the test?” Ian asks, suddenly serious again.

Mickey groans a little and shuts his eyes again.

”No,” he sighs, ”I wanna know, I really fucking do. I don’t want the kid to know though, if it isn’t me.”

”What’re you afraid of?”

”The truth,” Mickey admits, readily, ”if he isn’t my kid, likely is he’s my fucking brother. How do you explain that to someone who’s lucky enough to never have known Terry, huh?”

”Don’t know.”

”So it’s a tossup between a gay ex-con and the gay ex-con’s dead psychopathic father, congratu-fucking-lations Yev,” Mickey abandons Ian’s hand to rub at his eyes, ”you think he’d ever come looking for me if he had a clue about any of this? Kid’s better off not knowing.”

”Sure,” Ian says, voice thick, ”but he’s _not_ better off not knowing you.”

”Fuck off,” Mickey mumbles, fingers working furiously to rub out the wetness in his eyes, ”stupid fucking thing to say.”

”Came here looking for his dad,” Ian insists, ”maybe the whole Greek tragedy thing is a bit left field of what he expected but, I don’t know. Seemed okay with me being there, for one, in the end. Didn’t seem too worried about the ex-con part, or you insisting ’we don’t know’. He’s almost thirteen, Mick, he probably knows what that means.”

”Doesn’t know all it means,” Mickey sighs and clasps his tear-stained hand back to Ian’s, ”don’t ever want him to know about Terry, about any of it. No kid needs to know they’re the result of that.”

”You’re right,” Ian nuzzles his shoulder slightly, ”we need to talk to Lana about this. See what she thinks.”

”Not sure I give a fuck what she thinks, man,” Mickey fits his fingers in the spaces between Ian’s, focusing on that, ”bitch sent fucking tests and everything. The worst fucking day of my life, Ian. If she fucking lied about that shit-”

”I know,” Ian whispers, and Mickey’s thankful he’s not doing much else as he’s not sure it wouldn’t break him right now, ”I know.”

Ian picks himself up a little and bends down again to press a lingering kiss to Mickey’s temple, mumbling something Mickey can’t quite make out. Then he detaches himself from Mickey’s back to settle down next to him. Shuffling in place for a second and then going still.

They’ve talked about this once before, shouting and crying and throwing things. They’d done a lot of things better the second time around, set some rules, actually talked. Been together because this time they truly knew it was what they wanted, it wasn’t just something that happened thinking there was nothing else, no other choice. Still, they weren’t perfect and for the longest time Mickey had refused to talk about prison, or about Yevgeny. Or indeed about any of the horrible things they were put through, and put each other through, once.

And Ian had pushed, more than he should have. Because prison was all he could think of sometimes. Prison and Yevgeny, pornos and randoms. Terry. He wanted to talk about everything, and sometimes it felt like so goddamned much, like there was no end to the shit they needed to wade through before it got better. And then it didn’t get better. And then it did.

But there were still some things Mickey didn’t want to talk about. He insisted that prison was fucking prison man, no need for a goddamned play by play. Insisted that some shit was better off left in the past. 

He wouldn’t necessarily tell it to his face, but Ian had been right. They probably should have talked about it, slowly, calmly, little bit at a time. Instead, it’d been two intense days of terrifying uncertainty and cathartic revelation. He’d found himself so unfathomably scared, scared to lose Ian again, scared to realize that he found himself once more so dependent on Ian’s willingness to be his.

Ian told him about his nightmares, Mickey locked up in small boxes, in walls, in the mattress. Mickey bleeding out on the floor and Ian feeling like he was the one locked up, unable to move. Ian told him how he blamed himself for everything, for being sick, for the breakup, for Sammi, for prison, for Svetlana taking Yevgeny away. He told him how he still sometimes didn’t know if he maybe imagined things when he looked at Mickey and thought he saw love in his eyes. You can’t fake that. You can’t fake that.

So Mickey told him about the monotony. About reading books and watching basic cable TV all day, sometimes without sound. About doing laundry or working in the kitchen, about playing cards and pretending to think naked chicks were a good idea. About fucking other guys, about feeling like a rapist. Being one. About fucking or being fucked. He told him about the beatings, about the drugs, about Terry. He told him about almost dying, about wanting to die. Told him about that one day when he had two visitors at once, Iggy first, telling him about Ian. The faceless lawyers second, telling him about Yevgeny.

He told him about bleeding knuckles and broken bones. Overdosing. Recovering. About Terry dying, beat down by the guards while trying to strangle his youngest son. Told him about this one book he read after, how clearly he remembered it. Mind no longer shadowed by drugs and monsters.

Ian cried, silently at first and then so hard Mickey thought he’d never stop. 

And Mickey told him he loved him, over and over again.

Mickey blinks and turns to lie on his back. He looks up to see Ian’s still awake profile, he’s sitting next to him, slouched down with his shoulders and back of his head resting against the wall. They don’t have any curtains and the small window lets in enough of the Chicago night lights for Mickey to see his face pretty clearly.

”What about you, man?” he asks, folding his hands on his chest and tracing the ceiling with his eyes.

”What?” Ian sounds like he’d been far away, maybe thinking Mickey’d fallen asleep.

”You okay with all this?” he clarifies. ”Don’t want you stressin’ out over something that don’t have to be your problem.”

He knows he shouldn’t say shit like that. Knows it from all the times he’s pissed Ian off by thinking it’s a good idea. Knows it from the clear frown on his face now.

”Fuck,” Mickey sighs, and turns on his right side so he can grab an arm around Ian’s waist and pull himself flush against him, pressing his face against his arm and the side of his chest. Feeling the dips between his ribs under his nose. ”Didn’t fucking mean it like that. I’m sorry.”

”How did you mean it?”

”You know I’m chronically stupid about those sorta things, Ian,” Mickey mutters, doesn’t like how cold Ian’s skin is from sitting away from him, ”givin’ you outs you don’t want. Didn’t mean anything by it at all. You got this bond with the kid I barely managed to get hold of myself before shit went down. Fucking know you want part in this.”

”You’re getting real good at that,” Ian says.

”What?” Mickey grins, ”realizing I’m being an asshole even before I’ve finished a sentence?”

”No, being an asshole never bothered you,” Ian’s smiling now.

”Yeah, well,” Mickey unconsciously moves his thumb across Ian’s ribs, feels the slight unevenness of his tattooed skin, ”you’re getting good too.”

Ian nods silently at that. No more than a year ago and this right here would have been a quickly escalating argument. This is nice, this feels right. Feels like the reason they’ve been fighting for so long.

”Don’t want to see her,” Mickey confesses after a few moments of silence, ”don’t think I can-”

”Don’t have to, Mick,” Ian promises, ”I’ll talk to her for us.”

”No, Ian, I don’t think-”

”No,” Ian cuts him off and struggles a little as he picks up the covers and Mickey’s arm so he can slide down and face him completely, hand immediately finding Mickey’s cheek, thumb slowly tracing a line under his eye. ”You shouldn’t have to see her, I wanna do this for you. Make sure you can see Yev without having to deal with her at all, for now.”

Mickey nods, wordlessly, inching his face closer to Ian’s and closing his eyes when he feels his warm breath against him. There’s always a thrill of excitement and a flash of panic in the first moment of being this close to Ian, it was what made him pull away for such a long time and it’s his most guarded secret now. He never pulls away anymore, instead he gets in closer, fills his whole immediate world with nothing but Ian. 

He heaves his body closer still, hand gripping Ian’s hip, finding its way to the small of his back. He kisses him, warm and deep and long, Ian’s hand heavy on the side of his face.

”You wanna know a dumb thing?” Ian smiles against his lips, his voice low and rough. Mickey nods, kisses the amused line by the side of his mouth, ”back in the house, when we got together-”

Mickey hums and turns to lie on his back again, Ian settling in against his shoulder.

”Terry was away, Lana let us be together, be around Yev,” he continues, like Mickey doesn’t remember, ”and you started looking at Yev like he wasn’t everything wrong with the world. I thought it’d be us forever, the four of us.”

Mickey sighs and holds on to Ian’s wrist, his arm hugging Mickey’s chest closely.

”That so dumb?”

”Nope,” Ian’s sounding slightly self-conscious now and Mickey doesn’t look at him, lets him take his time, ”but I looked at Yev, and all I could see was you, and I loved him. And I thought- didn’t wanna think of him as being alive because of some insane monster punishing his son for being who he was, so I thought of him as made from us.”

Ian turns his head a little, his mouth against Mickey’s shoulder again, slightly muffling the sound of his voice.

”He found us, he beat us, he used Lana to rape you,” Mickey closes his eyes, this, this is something they’ve talked about more than once, but it sure as fuck doesn’t get any easier, ”but it made Yev. You, me, Lana, we made him. You and me, Mick.”

All of Mickey’s physical being wants to cringe and scoff and call Ian hopelessly sentimental. But he knows Ian really isn’t, and a big part of Mickey is both proud of and impressed with an eighteen-year-old reasoning in such a profound and forgiving way. Setting aside his own scars and trauma for the sake of something innocent being born out of useless pain and violence.

”So you want us to be his two gay dads?” Mickey smiles, swallowing over the lump in his throat.

”Wanna get to know him,” Ian smiles too, he can feel it against his shoulder, ”let him decide what he wants from us. Far as I’m concerned, we already are dads. Been since he was born.”

”You’re a fucking sap, you know that?” Ian chuckles at him, bites at his shoulder. ”Hey, asshole, that ain’t gonna help your case, bein’ a cannibal and a sap ain’t mutually exclusive.”

Ian grazes his lips across the indentations left from his teeth, blows gently on the spot.

”He didn’t seem to hate me though,” Mickey says after thinking it over, finally feeling like he’s thinking clearly, ”did he?”

”Really didn’t.”

”’Course, he thought I was dead,” Mickey adds, ”so just by being alive I’m doing a lot better than he ever expected of me.”

Ian barks out a laugh, the sound breaking the delicate tension in the room, the sound beautiful to Mickey. Then he puts his hand to Mickey’s neck and pulls himself closer, nose and mouth against the side of Mickey’s face. He doesn’t kiss him, instead Mickey can feel him wordlessly say the thing he rarely says out loud, letting his lips transfer the meaning to Mickey’s skin physically rather than verbally. Goosebumps either way.

Mickey doesn’t need to hear it. He knows.

 

 

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so, thank you so much for the fantastic feedback I got on Two for One. You wanted more, and I very much wanted to write more, turns out.
> 
> Made it a series, called it something very straightforward for now, until I can think of something better. Thanks for reading!
> 
> (Also, made the bold statement of assuming that eleven years from now our phones still kinda work like smartphones and alarm clock radios are still a thing. Beautiful future.)


End file.
